SAN JOSE — It’s Wednesday morning and they’re mixing things up again at the Alzheimer’s Activity Center and Rosa Elena Childcare Center, where the brightest minds of yesterday and tomorrow have come together today — to make pumpkin bread.

Aprons are tied and spatulas are twirling as activities specialist Tammy Froh circles the table, dumping a scoop of flour here, a dash of cinnamon there and a touch of nutmeg into mixing bowls as the glumpy-gloopy batter becomes silky smooth.

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“Ooh, slimy,” said Sofia Leon, 4, churning away at the cake mix with the help of one of the many grandmas she hangs out with every weekday morning.

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For almost two decades, this unique intergenerational day care in San Jose has been mixing seniors whose memories and mobility are slowly vanishing with preschoolers whose soak-up-everything brains and little legs are set to overdrive.

One ingredient that never gets mixed in is impatience. Four-year-olds with hairnets, flour-coated cheeks and fingers swimming in adult-size cooking gloves don’t get judgmental if a kitchenful of grandmas and grandpas confuse a ladle with a whisk.

“When you are 4, you don’t see the disease. You just learn to be patient, you learn to have compassion,” said Rosa Barneond, who has run the child care side of the day care for 24 years and has seen the impact of these special relationships on her own children who are now in their 20s and teens.

“When I ask my daughter about her memories here, she says, ‘I was little. I didn’t know anything about Alzheimer’s. I knew them as Grandpa and Grandma.’”

Intergenerational day care centers have been around for decades, boosted by a variety of studies that show how people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are more engaged and less agitated during and after activities with young children. But the number of centers is still surprisingly low, despite the growing Sandwich Generation of adults responsible for the needs of aging parents and their own children.

The model caught on here almost by accident after employees of this West San Jose nonprofit’s adult day care started a co-op on-site to care for their kids.

Naturally, when the little ones started mingling with the seniors, singing and dancing for the graying grown ups, enchanted community members began asking if they could enroll their own children, said Maria Nicolacoudis, the center’s executive director.

“We noticed, ‘Hey we have something here,’’’ she said.

Activities are closely monitored to keep the kids safe and to protect frail seniors from catching sniffles and other germs from their young classmates.

Amy Hurst, the center’s activities director, knows the conversation can turn magical when small groups of children and the adults they know as grandpas and grandmas come together for crafts or gardening or story time once a day.

She also used to bring her own daughter, and when she’d strap Haley into her car seat and ask about her day, the little girl would say Grandpa Cecil promised her a pony again.

“Well, it turned out Cecil did get his own granddaughter a pony,” Hurst explained.

Hurst and the other staff members who greet the dozens of seniors who arrive six days a week have learned the preschoolers’ charm can be a potent antidote to the anxiety or orneriness that dementia-sufferers may be feeling.

“We see there are so many frustrations sometimes of not knowing the next step,” Hurst said of the seniors. “And then they see a child and the problems all wash away. Suddenly, it’s what they are creating at that moment that matters. With a child, it’s that moment.”

At 82, the retired civil engineer doesn’t curse his declining memory; he flaunts what’s left of it, reeling off everything from how his dad was a half-inch too short to join the Navy, to how he broke his leg playing linebacker for Bellarmine College Preparatory against Archbishop Riordan.

OB can’t remember names anymore, however. And about two years ago he couldn’t remember where he was going when he was driving to Orchard Supply Hardware like he’s done a hundred times and ended up in Cupertino. Or was it Milpitas? He knew right then it was time to give up the car keys for good.

But OB remembers how nice it feels to get a hug from a little girl like Miah after they finish their art project. “I like to tease with her,” he says.

Four-year-old Braden Terry doesn’t spend much time talking about the benefits of having his real grandmother, Elsie Valero, attending his day care. He’d rather talk about Disney superheros “PJ Masks” and his favorite character Catboy. “He has super speed!”

But Grandma Elsie — and just about everyone else — brightens every time Braden and a parade of preschoolers bop into the activity room, which Wish Book readers can help stock with computers, puzzles, games, and garden and other supplies.

“Their faces just light up,” Barneond said.

While the lessons that Braden and Sofia are learning from their classmates in wheelchairs and walkers may not be obvious yet, their teacher promises they are sinking in.

Barneond sees the impact years later, like the time her daughter Emily, now 16, happened upon a music festival on her way to the airport when an elderly man spontaneously asked her to dance.

“I told her, you’re going to be late for your plane, you’ve got to go,” Barneond said. “She told me, ‘I made his day, and that’s what matters.’

Donations will help the Alzheimer’s Activity Center and Rosa Elena Childcare Center improve programs for the day care with two or three new computers ($5,000); outdoor games and equipment ($1,000); a garden kit ($300); puzzles and books ($2,000); bringing in musicians to perform ($1,000); and for an audio center to record books on tape ($2,000).

Mike Frankel oversees regional news coverage at the Bay Area News Group, which means he gets the chance to learn something new every day from a team of editors and reporters who are among the region's most-trusted experts on everything from politics to the environment, science to state government, healthcare to higher education. While he's passionate about bicycling, not to mention baseball and beer and enjoying both at AT&T Park, he still pulls for his hometown St. Louis Cardinals.

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